MEDIA INDUSTRY IS KEY TO EUROPEAN DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY

European public service media organizations are ready to take on a stronger role of leadership in the drive to strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty – that was one of the key themes at this week’s ‘Accelerating European Media Innovation’ event in Brussels, a joint conference co-organized by the MediaRoad consortium and the EBU.

“The media sector plays a central role in making Europe fit for the digital age”,

said Antonio Arcidiacono, EBU Director of Technology & Innovation, in his keynote to an audience of EU lawmakers, EBU Members and high-level speakers including the current EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel.

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Sandbox Prizes awarded @IBC2019

MediaRoad Sandbox Prize winners announced

The winners of the MediaRoad Sandbox Prizes were announced on Sunday 15 September, during an award ceremony taking place at IBC2019 in Amsterdam.

  • The 1st Prize was awarded to Newsbridge, a startup collaborating with France Televisions’ Sandbox, for its Newsbridge IdX project, an automatic cognitive indexing service
  • The 2nd Prize was awarded to On-Hertz, collaborating with the Vlaamse Radio Televisie (VRT) Sandbox, for their full radio studio on a tablet, providing a cost-effective and straightforward solution in mobility
  • France Télévisions Sandbox was also rewarded as the Sandbox creating the most Quality Label projects. This Sandbox was always among the most active in collaborating with startups and exploring innovative solutions, certifying 5 projects with the Quality Label as part of the MediaRoad project.

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2nd Edition Open Innovation Day was a success!

On June 26th, at Rai premises in Torino, the Open Innovation Day was carried out for the second time. The workshop was specially targeted to startups and small enterprises offering innovative solutions to technical and editorial problems in the area of media. Its goal was to improve mutual knowledge in areas of interest, creating a network of stakeholders aimed at collaborating, and contributing to innovation in the media industry. The event was organised in collaboration with ItaliaStartup, the not-for-profit association of Italian Startups, and I3P, the innovation accelerator of the Polytechnic of Turin, in synergy with the Italian Tech Week, a whole week of conferences and workshop focusing on innovation and technology in Torino.

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France Télévisions’ Sandbox “The Fiction Lab” Project obtains MediaRoad’s Quality Label

MediaRoad assigned the Quality Label to France Télévisions’ Sandbox “The Fiction Lab” Project, started in November 2018. The project was carried out by France Info TV, a subsidiary of France Télévisions. See https://www.mediaroad.eu/prize-development-and-quality-label for information about the MediaRoad’s Quality Label.

Based on researches in cognitive science, THE FICTION LAB develop the CFX technology to help content producers and broadcasters to better manage audience satisfaction. CFXs, standing for Special Cognitive Effects, are words, images, sounds, signs, objects… that can be inserted into any content. They are classified by the cognitive effect they generate: attention, memorization, emotion, identification, credibility or edification.

THE FICTION LAB develops a methodology, and software, dedicated to mapping all CFXs embedded within a given content. The outcome is a report presenting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats regarding CFXs. A kind of “SWOT” analysis in the context of audience satisfaction, helping producers and broadcaster to make the best strategic decisions for their content.

They are naturally used by all influencers: corporate hierarchy, educators, media, beliefs, politicians, vendors. Popular television series send up to three CFXs per minute to the audience, mainly CFXs of identification, excitement and emotion. More than 500 CFXs are listed in behavioural economics.

The collaboration with the French news channel FRANCE INFO TV consisted of a CFXs analysis for a typical day of broadcasting. Focused on about 60 CFXs specific to news, we were able to suggest 20 improving leads, from reducing interference between text and audio, to gaze axis configuration during interviews.

CFXs technology is nurtured by the amazing interest of contemporary research on the human brain. New CFXs are yet to be discovered. Our mission is to bring them to the content industry.

More info

Start-up website: http://thefictionlab.org/

Email: emmanuel.kuster[AT]thefictionlab.org

Project description on MediaRoad site: https://www.mediaroad.eu/archives/portfolio/thefictionlab-cognitive-sciences-and-news

Sandbox: France Télévisions’ Sandbox

France Télévisions’ Sandbox “Streamroot” Project obtains MediaRoad’s Quality Label

MediaRoad assigned the Quality Label to France Télévisions’ Sandbox “Streamroot” Project, started in July 2018. Find here more information about MediaRoad’s Quality Label.

As online audiences grow, traditional client-server architectures are less and less effective for delivering video content, both from a cost and from a quality standpoint. A secure and hybrid mesh network delivery system meanwhile helps broadcasters scale to increase viewership. By obtaining video segments from the source that can provide them most quickly – either a content delivery network (CDN) server or another device watching the same content – hybrid CDN / mesh network delivery allows broadcasters not only to reduce bandwidth costs but also to ensure higher quality video for viewers.

Today France Télévision delivers over 50% of its online desktop traffic via Streamroot’s mesh network delivery. They use the service for all live and catch-up TV channels as well as their most important broadcasts, including Rolland Garros, Tour de France and other international sporting competitions and cultural events.

Together the companies are working to promote more reliable ways of delivering video content over the internet to meet the exponential growth in online viewing today and in the future. This initiative will help ensure the viability of the france.tv platform in the long term.

More info

Start-up website: https://streamroot.io

Email: erica[AT]streamroot.io

Project description on MediaRoad site: https://www.mediaroad.eu/archives/portfolio/streamroot-distributed-network-architecture-on-france-tv

Sandbox: France Télévisions’ Sandbox

France Télévisions’ “Compositeur Digital” Sandbox project with Excense obtains MediaRoad’s Quality Label

MediaRoad assigned the Quality Label to France Télévisions’ Sandbox “Compositeur Digital” Project, created by the Excense start-up, started in September 2018. See https://www.mediaroad.eu/prize-development-and-quality-label for information about the MediaRoad’s Quality Label.

In September 2018, France Télévisions introduced a new concept for live presentations of news on its channels. Journalists are now able to manipulate on a large touch screen their presentation contents such as pictures, videos or even 3D models while delivering their explanations and being filmed in close up. With natural gestures, the presenter can move, zoom in or hide content to improve clarity for viewers.

This approach emphasizes the journalist’s expertise and creates a powerful engagement with our audience.  The solution is now used on a daily basis on France Info TV but also on the evening news on France 2 (main channel).

The Compositeur Digital software is developed by Excense, an awarded startup with activities with industry leaders of the French Stock Market and US companies.

Their product has been rapidly adopted by our community of journalists for its ease of use and visual impact, helping us create a new standard in broadcast journalism in France.

More info

Start-up website: http://www.excense.fr/en/index.html

Email: contact[AT]excense.fr

Project description on MediaRoad site 

Sandbox: France Télévisions Lab

VRT’s Sandbox “On-Hertz” project obtains MediaRoad’s Quality Label

MediaRoad assigned the Quality Label to VRT’s Sandbox On-Hertz project, started in May 2018.

In a very quickly evolving media landscape, traditional media must reinvent themselves in order to maintain brand engagement and generate new revenue streams.

Radio holds a very special place in people’s lives, reaching very large audiences daily and achieving the highest scores in terms of trustworthiness. Radio is the media of proximity by excellence: global reach, large & deep offer, responsive, strong communities, and deeply human.

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MediaRoad Quality Label: France Télévisions’ Sandbox project “Newsbridge idX”

During fall 2017, the News Service of France Télévisions (French public national television broadcaster) chose Newsbridge to join its very first media accelerator. Supported by France Télévisions Innovation Department and the Medialab, Newsbridge deployed an AI-based video pre-indexing system that would help journalists and documentalists to better handle, explore and browse the huge amount of content received every day. This project coincided with the beta launch of Newsbridge’s automatic cognitive indexing service: Newsbridge idX.

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MediaRoad Quality Label: France Télévisions’ Sandbox project “ToonYou: personalized content for kids”

MediaRoad assigned its Quality Label to France Télévisions’ Sandbox “ToonYou: personalized content for kids” project. The project started in October 2017, and the collaboration is still ongoing.

France Télévisions and ToonYou have teamed up to bring a unique experience to their young audience. They can watch an educative cartoon series called My Dream Jobs on FRANCE 5, one of the most watched TV channels for kids in France, and then are invited in the closing credits to go online with an app called TOONYOU to personalize the main characters with the faces of the family. Mom or Dad and the kid inside a series of 70 episodes of 3 minutes. With one selfie ToonYou can generate more than

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MediaRoad Quality Label: VRT’s Sandbox project “Sensifai Celebrity Recognition System”

MediaRoad assigned the Quality Label to VRT’s Sandbox project namely “Sensifai celebrity recognition system”. The Sensifai’s celebrity recognition system has been integrated into VRT’s archives to empower content search. See here for information about the MediaRoad’s Quality Label.

Media companies, publishers, social media and multimedia asset management providers often require finding and tagging celebrities in large archives of video and images. Powered by visual deep-learning technology, Sensifai offers an easy-to-use interface which automates the process of recognizing celebrities with a very accurate face

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